


Whose Beauty is Past Change

by spuffyduds



Category: due South
Genre: Community: c6d_universe, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-13
Updated: 2010-07-13
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser and Kowalski build a life that's not based on looking back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whose Beauty is Past Change

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of Fraser/Victoria; done for the c6d_universe prompt of "weather."

He'd marveled, when she reappeared, at her unchanged-ness, at how years of prison could have left her smile as beautiful, her soul intact.

He was mistaken, of course. It wasn't intact. It wasn't even there.

But it was perhaps her false unchangedness that let him think he could fix something that was over and done with long ago, could step back in time almost, for they were still the same people, weren't they? They could do it again, do it better, he could change what she rightfully, deservedly hated him for.

It's different with Ray. Thank God. After Fraser finally, finally could bear it no more, leaned forward to touch Ray's lips with his, he'd tried to apologize for so many things. For waiting so long, for being a coward, for being deliberately obtuse, for misunderstanding Ray's body language and double entendres long past the point where it was even faintly reasonable. And with every apology, those first few weeks, Ray shrugged, made a flinging-something-over-his-shoulder gesture, said, "Water over the dam."

No matter how angry Ray got with him--and oh, did Ray get angry--every morning seemed to be a clean slate. This struck Fraser as so miraculous that he finally had to ask.

"If I held onto grudges, I'dve been married ten days instead of ten years, Fraser," Ray said. "Stella had a _mouth_ on her in a fight, and I knew she didn't mean it, had to let it go. She did the same for me, mostly. And that whole thing with my dad--I'm not gonna be that guy."

And really, there's no question of going back and fixing things, because it wouldn't work anyway; Ray is so clearly a different person from one day to the next.

Becoming visibly weathered on the Quest, the bright bursts of his squint lines against his sunburn making him look like a cowboy-movie star.

Becoming a good tracker by watching Fraser and by trying over and over again, and being so noticeably proud of himself when it starts to work that Fraser unaccountably feels tears pricking at his eyes.

Becoming a reasonable French speaker, with tapes. ("No, Frase, not books.") Well, while his accent is reasonable, the things he says are very often not. Admirably colloquial, however.

Becoming a swimmer, one of the larger and more surprising changes; he goes for weeks of lessons at the Inuvik Family Centre. Fraser can't keep himself from tagging along, the first couple of weeks; he still dreams sometimes about the mad fumble through Ray's keyring in the chill of the rising water. It's reassuring to watch Ray in the light-dappled pool (_not_ black and cold and oily) to know Fraser can pull him out if need be. Ray finally tells him, gently, that he's embarrassing Ray in front of the other new swimmers, who are mostly around eight years old.

His hair grew out dark on the months of the quest, and now it's streaking from the chlorine, but not with the blond Fraser knew in Chicago; the streaks are more...grey, actually. Ray inspects it thoroughly in the over-the-sink mirror, a few weeks into swimming, and Fraser slides down a little further into the tub, nose just above water, ears half drowned while he waits for Ray to panic, to say he wants to go back to what he was, to who he was.

Ray turns around and grins at him, says "Grizzled punk, huh? I like it."

There are things that stay the same, of course. Ray's nigh-incoherent surliness before the first cup of coffee, his nervousness every time they have to stand in line at the bank. (Fraser finally _gets_ that one, and starts going alone.) His too-easily-triggered concern over the dogs--Fraser eventually has to put his foot down, or they'd be going to the vet after every random yelp. The way he kisses Fraser goodbye every morning, as thoroughly and intensely as if it were their first time, or their last. The harsh, loud noises he makes in bed, a cacophony of pleasure.

But even there he's full of surprises. And Fraser watches him, his weathered face and grizzling hair, his frame bulked out from dogsledding and woodchopping and everything else--_country_ fit now, fit to be as fine a partner here as he was in Chicago. And then Fraser closes his eyes and just _feels_ whatever the new thing is this time, leather around his wrists or ice circling his nipples, sweet sweet pleasure and a little salt of pain. And thanks whatever gods there are for change, for growth, for forgiveness, for Ray.

 

\---end---


End file.
